Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)

DEIS plus is a welcome initiative and has been championed by my party and the former Deputy Ó Ríordáin, now an MEP. There has to be cross-party support for the roll-out of DEIS plus. It is about the implementation being as quick as possible because schools need it.

Deputy O'Rourke and I met with a number of principals recently in the audiovisual room in relation to their schools and one point they focused on was the deputy principal role. I hope DEIS plus will help to tackle disadvantage in many schools across the country. We only have 0.75 of a deputy principal in one DEIS school in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area of Cork, for example. I do not doubt the Minister's bona fides on this. We just need to get it done as quickly as possible.

See this speech in context